WWII Timeline

Beer Hall Putsch

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party led a coalition group in an attempted coup d'état which came to be known as the Beer Hall Putsch.
References:Ushmm.org,. 'Beer Hall Putsch (Munich Putsch)'. N.p., 2015. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
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Jan 6, 1925

Mussolini takes over Italy's Government

At the end of 1922 Mussolini took control of the Italian government, saying that if they refused their demands he would openly force a coup to occure, that's how Mussolini took power in Italy.
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Aug 27, 1928

Kellogg-Briand Pact

As a result of Kellogg’s proposal, nearly all the nations of the world eventually subscribed to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, agreeing to renounce war as an instrument of national policy and to settle all international disputes by peaceful means.
[Reference:](Encyclopedia Britannica,. 'Kellogg-Briand Pact | France-United States [1928]'. N.p., 2015. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.)
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Oct 29, 1929

U.S. Stock Market Crash

In 1929, a stock market crash caused the Dow Jones index -- one of the main indices used to evaluate the health of the American economy -- to lose nearly 12 percent of its value in one day.
[Reference:](Clark, Josh. 'Can The Government Control A Stock Market Crash? - Howstuffworks'. HowStuffWorks. N.p., 2015. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.)
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Sep 19, 1931

Japan Invades Manchuria

Hungry for raw materials and pressed by a growing population, Japan initiated the seizure of Manchuria in September 1931 and established ex-Qing emperor Puyi as head of the puppet regime of Manchukuo in 1932. The loss of Manchuria, and its vast potential for industrial development and war industries, was a blow to the Nationalist economy.
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Jan 30, 1933

Nazi's reach a political majority in Germany

A man like Hitler could have only have succeeded in country that was thoroughly Protestant (or godless) or else he would have been put down and strongly resisted. That was why the nazi's got so high in the polls was because the whole farming community that voted for them were protestants.
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Jan 30, 1933

Hitler becomes Germany's Chancellor

Hitler got elected for chancellor shortly after the president was inaugurated in the U.S. Hitler was also a close friend of Roosevelt's and he had known him for a while before he was elected as chancellor.
[Reference:](Reformation.org,. 'Roosevelt And Hitler Unmaked At Last!!'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Feb 24, 1933

Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations

Japan was an early flaunter of the League's ideals, conducting numerous military forays into China even though it was one of the league's four original council members. Japan itself would withdraw from the League of Nations in 1935 to pursue its own greater ambitions in the Far East.
[Reference:](Beyondbandofbrothers.com,. 'League Of Nations'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Apr 7, 1933

First Anti-Semitic Law is passed in Germany

Soon after coming to power the Nazis enacted their first wave of anti-Jewish legislation which dealt with employment. For example "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" was enacted.This law provided for the dismissal of all "non-Aryan" civil servants. Also, on the same day, a law was enacted which denied admission to the bar to lawyers of "non-Aryan descent".
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Jun 30, 1934

The night of the long knives (Rohm Purge)

The Night of the Long Knives was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders.
[Reference:](End, Witt's. 'VA Viper: June 30, 1934 Was The Night Of The Long Knives, Hitler's Purge Of Those Standing In His Way'. Vaviper.blogspot.com. N.p., 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Mar 15, 1935

Hitler openly announces to his cabinet he will defy the Treaty of Versailles

Hitler remilitarized Germany in defiance of the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I. He rebuilt the German Navy, including a prohibited submarine fleet, created an air force, the Luftwaffe, and expanded the army well beyond the 100,000-man limit set by the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler reintroduced conscription in 1935, also in violation of the treaty.
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Sep 15, 1935

Creation of the Nuremberg Laws

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined who was a Jew. It classified people with four German grandparents as German.
[Reference:](Worldwar2headquarters.com,. 'German WWII Poster - Nuremberg Laws And Classification Of Jews'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Oct 3, 1935

Italy invades Ethiopia

Italy recognized the independence of Ethiopia but still retained much influence there because of her colonies in neighboring Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. Under Mussolini Italy began again to pressure Ethiopia. The border clash at Wal-Wal brought the struggle for influence there to world attention.
[Reference:](Users.dickinson.edu,. 'Ethiopiaspeech'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Dec 13, 1937

Rape of Nanking

Army officers competed against each other to see who could kill the most Chinese first. Thousands of women were gang-raped to death. All totaled, over 300,000 Chinese were brutally murdered during the first few weeks of the of the Japanese occupation of Nanking.
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Mar 12, 1938

Germany Annexes Austria

The Anschluss annexed Austria into Greater Germany. There was no fighting involved, due to a well-timed internal overthrow by the Austrian Nazi Party. Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg had actually wanted to maintain Austria's independence.The Anschluss violated the Treaty of Versailles, but, thanks in part to the quarrelling between Britain and France, and the failure of The Stresa Front, nothing could be done about it.
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Sep 1, 1938

Hitler demands the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia "is within the jaws of restless new Germany, which only a few months ago seized the lands and people of neighboring Austria.
[Refrence:](Xroads.virginia.edu,. 'Marching Toward War: Czechoslovakia'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Sep 30, 1938

Munich Conference

The Munich Agreement was a bargain between Nazi Germany, and its allies, Italy, the Western Powers of France, and the United Kingdom. The bargain, or pact, allowed Germany to take over the borderlands of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland.
[Reference:](Munichagreement.erritouni.com,. 'Munich Agreement Of 1938'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Nov 9, 1938

Kristallnacht

On Kristallnacht and in the days which followed, hundreds of men from Würzburg and neighboring communities were imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo. Some 300 Jewish men were deported to the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
[Reference:](Yadvashem.org,. 'It Came From Within... Exhibition Marking The Events Of Kristallnacht'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Aug 2, 1939

Einstein’s letter to FDR, “The Manhattan Project”

Einstein was willing to write to the President.As a life-long pacifist,he opposed the making of weapons,but he could not allow the Nazis sole possession of such destructive power.
His only objection was that Szilard's letter was long and somewhat awkward. He preferred a shorter message stressing the main points.
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Nazi invasion of Poland

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack.
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May 26, 1940

Evacuation of Dunkirk

On 10 May Hitler had launched his blitzkrieg against the Low Countries and France. By the end of the second week in May the French defences had been broken.
[Reference:](Christianstogether.net,. 'Christians Together : The Miracle Of Dunkirk: 70 Years On'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Jun 17, 1940

France Surrenders

Hitler unleashes his blitzkrieg invasion of the Low Countries and France with a fury on May 10, 1940. Within three weeks, a large part of the British force, accompanied by some of the French defenders, is pushed to the English Channel and compelled to abandon the continent at Dunkirk.
[Reference:](Invadefrance.us,. 'Invadefrance.US'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Jul 10, 1940

Battle of Britain

Britain’s air defence rested principally on the Royal Air Force. While Bomber Command and Coastal Command would both make a significant contribution to the Battle by attacking the German invasion preparations and airfields across the Channel, and the Army’s anti-aircraft guns would inflict losses on any raiders, only the pilots of Fighter Command, under Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, could meet the Luftwaffe head on.
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Sep 27, 1940

The Tripartite Pact

Japan invaded the French Indochina Peninsula on September 22, and subsequently concluded the Tripartite Pact on September 27. At an Imperial conference, Foreign Minister Matsuoka, who supported the pact, explained that the alliance was concluded “to avoid further aggression,” and to fight against the United States with a “decisive attitude.”
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Mar 11, 1941

Lend Lease Act

It allowed the formally neutral United States to become, in Roosevelt’s words, the “arsenal of democracy” in the war against Nazi Germany. Hitler cited the act when he declared war on the United States on December 11.
Read more: h
[Reference:](Iipdigital.usembassy.gov,. 'Lend-Lease: Facts And Numbers | IIP Digital'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Jun 22, 1941

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa, beginning 22 June 1941, was the code name for Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km front, the largest invasion in the history of warfare.
[Reference:](Matinsalo, Sauli. 'Operation Barbarossa, 1941'. Old Picz. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Dec 7, 1941

Bombing of Pearl Harbor

It’s estimated that around 1,000 veterans of World War II die every day. Some of those passing were on the Hawaiian island Oahu, Dec. 7, 1941.
It was around 8 a.m. that Sunday morning when Japanese planes screamed out of the sky, hitting the U.S. airfields and the b
[Reference:](Ashlock, Alex. 'Veteran Recalls Pearl Harbor Attack'. hereandnow. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.)
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Jan 1, 1942

Creation of the United Nations

Prior to the formation of the United Nations a number of meetings and events helped set the stage for the creation of the new international organization. Forty-four United Nations and associated nations meeting in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to discuss monetary stabilization as an aid to post-war trade. The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held in July 1944.
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Bataan Death March

The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of approximately 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the four-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II.
[Reference:](Tragedyofbataan.com,. 'Tragedy Of Bataan'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Apr 18, 1942

Doolittle Raid

In January 1942, Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold selected Lt. Col. James Doolittle to lead Special Aviation Project No. 1, the bombing of Japan. Doolittle, who enlisted in the Army in 1917, became a flying cadet and received his commission in 1918.
[Reference:](Nationalmuseum.af.mil,. 'Factsheets : Doolittle Raid'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Jun 5, 1942

Battle of Midway

The "boss" and I had the dawn inner air patrol from 0400 until 0900. The engine of my plane didn't turn up properly, so I sat up there on the catapult for about ten minutes until the leads were dried off. I have explained this procedure in the section Launching and recovering the Curtiss "Seagull" SOC-1 Scout Seaplane.
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Nov 8, 1942

Operation Torch

The information gathered by Rygor’s men and associates proved important to the success of Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa, in November of 1942.
[Reference:](Duvall, Robert. 'RYGOR: The Polish Spymaster - Life Through The Lens Of History'. Life through the Lens of History. N.p., 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Nov 19, 1942

Island Hopping (date for Buna-Gona Campaign)

The United States began a series of attacks on islands in the South Pacific in an attempt to eliminate the Japanese. America only took out the key islands, before moving onto the next set of critical bases.
[Reference:](History 12,. 'Island Hopping'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Feb 2, 1943

Battle of Stalingrad

Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942–Feb. 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the Russian S.F.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict.
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Jun 6, 1944

Operation Overlord and D-Day

As the liberation of Europe from the Nazis began, more than 6000 ships carried 130,000 troops across the English Channel to five Normandy beaches.
[Reference:](TheAustralian,. 'Our Australian Witnesses To The D-Day Horror'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Jul 20, 1944

Operation Valkyrie

July 20 was the closest attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters in East Prussia. The plot that came to be known as Operation Valkyrie (originally meaning "chooser of the slain") was the culmination of the efforts of the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi regime.
[Reference:](Beyondbandofbrothers.com,. 'Operation Valkyrie'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Jul 24, 1944

Discovery of Majdanek

July 23 marks one of the most important liberations of World War II. On that day in 1944, troops of the Soviet Second Tank Army liberated the Majdanek death camp near Lublin in Poland.
[Reference:](Rt.com,. '​Lessons From The Liberation Of Majdanek'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Dec 16, 1944

Battle of the Bulge

“It was the coldest weather ever recorded in this part of Europe that December in Belgium,” Earle recalled. “We couldn’t get out of our foxholes except to treat a wounded soldier. We’d crawl out through the snow and treat the soldier as best we could and crawl back in our foxhole.”
[Reference:](War Tales,. 'Medic Looks Back On Epic WWII Battle'. N.p., 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Apr 28, 1945

Hitler’s Suicide

In 1945, the world was convinced that Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun had committed suicide in a Berlin bunker, though this theory lacked proper documentation and evidence. It wasn't long until flaws in the theory surfaced. As further historical research was conducted, rumors began to circulate that challenged the suicide theory with claims of Hitler's escape to Argentina - particularly with news of sightings of German U-boats off the Argentinean coast.
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May 8, 1945

V-E Day

The war-weary British began to rejoice straight away rather than waiting for the official day of celebration on the 8th. There had been years of austerity and rationing: five inches of water for a bath, few eggs, no bananas and the motto 'make do and mend'.
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Aug 6, 1945

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The attacks – the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used in world history to date – killed tens of thousands of people and shocked the planet with the scale of their destruction.
[Reference:](Ghosh, Palash. 'Were Hiroshima And Nagasaki Racist Acts?'. International Business Times. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Sep 2, 1945

V-J Day

On Friday, 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered and the surrender documents were finally signed during a formal ceremony aboard the deck of the American battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay (below) on the morning of 2 September 1945, officially ending the war.
[Reference:](Pdxretro.com,. 'VJ-DAY ON THIS DATE IN 1945 | PDX RETRO'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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Nov 20, 1945

The Nuremberg Trials

On the 11th March, 1938, Goering made two separate statements to M. Mastny, the Czechoslovak Minister in Berlin, assuring him that the developments then taking place in Austria would in no way have any detrimental influence on the relations between the German Reich and Czechoslovakia, and emphasised the continued earnest endeavour on the part of the Germans to improve those mutual relations. On the 12th March, Goering asked M. Mastny to call on him, and repeated these assurances.
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May 3, 1946

The Japanese War Crime Trials

All Japanese Class A war criminals were tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) in Tokyo. The prosecution team consisted of justices from eleven Allied nations: Australia, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The Tokyo trial lasted from May 1946 to November 1948.
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Dec 26, 1947

The Beginning of the Cold War

The end of World War II set the stage for the Cold War, the struggle between communism and capitalism that pitted East against West and pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.
[Reference:](Cnn.com,. 'The History Of The Cold War - CNN.Com'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.)
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